London 2012 Olympics: flagship cable car breaks down in searing heat

Dozens of passengers were left dangling up to 300 feet in the air yesterday
after a multi-million pound cable car linking key Olympic venues broke down
in the searing heat.

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Alastair Owens' tweeted this image of the London Emirates cable car after it broke downPhoto: ALASTAIR OWENS

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Alastair Owens' tweeted this image once they had landedPhoto: ALASTAIR OWENS

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Air line: A general view of the Emirates Air Line cable car between North Greenwich and the Royal DocksPhoto: GETTY IMAGES

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As well as a long-term lease for the O2 arena, AEG owns stakes in the Los Angeles Lakers basketball franchise, David Beckham’s Los Angeles Galaxy football team and the Los Angeles Kings ice hockey team.Photo: John Sturrock

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Air line: A general view of the Emirates Air Line cable car between North Greenwich and the Royal DocksPhoto: GETTY IMAGES

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Last night, Transport for London launched an investigation to establish what caused the fault but denied witness claims that it had broken down because of the heat.

While some workers claimed a key generator had overheated, apologetic officials said the earlier inquiries suggested the “technical fault” was down to a faulty sensor.

The service, which can carry up to 2,500 people per hour in each direction over nearly half a mile, broke down at 11.45am.

With police and emergency services on standby, officials desperately tried to restart the cars, before it became fully operational at 12.18pm and passengers were returned to solid ground.

The service, which links the O2 arena in Greenwich, south London – home to basketball and gymnastics events – and the ExCeL exhibition centre at the Royal Docks, host to several sports, was out of action for almost two hours as tests were carried out.

It comes just a few weeks after the new cable car service was suspended for 33 minutes because of fears of a lightning strike.

Cassam Looch, a 29 year-old, from Walthamstow, north east London, said workers had told him one of the generators had overheated.

“He said it was something they knew potentially was a problem and … they would have to look at in the high temperatures,” said the freelance film writer, who was visiting with a friend.

“There were quite a few elderly people and because of the summer holidays there were quite a number of young children as well. There were concerns about some of them as they came off looking very hot and flustered.

“When we got on there it took only about five minutes and it was very hot so I can’t imagine what it was like up there for more than half and hour.”

Another passenger, Dr Alastair Owens, a geography lecturer at the Queen Mary, University of London, said he was left “dangling mid air over the docks” about 30 seconds into their trip.

The 40 year-old, from Hackney, East London, had taken his children, William, 10, and Lily, seven, and one of his son's friends Rocco, nine, for a special school holiday trip.

He said: "We heard a series of standard annoucements suggesting that they sometiomes have to stop the cars to enable people to get on and off, but after a while we stopped hearing these.

"From where we were we could see that passangers waiting to board the cable cars were being led away and that those who were in cars in the docking area were being helped to disembark.

"There was still no announcement for those of us left hanging in the cars so I started to 'Tweet' to see if that might provoke a response."

He added: "We were probably in the car for aroun 50 minutes and as you might imagine with the weather today it was fairly hot. Stupidly, I did not have any water with me, but we were all in good spirits."

"We all thought it was a bit of an adventure and spent most of the time speculating on how they might get us out if they couldn't move the cars. When we eventually got on the move the views were favulous and we enjoyed the rest of the 'flight'.

"As we got off the cable car we were greeted by the staff with glasses of cold water - by that time we were feeling pretty hot and were all looking a bit flushed. They apologised and we continued on our way to Greenwich for lunch."

Danny Price, the head of the service, apologised for “technical fault”.

He added: “We would like to apologise to anyone affected.”

A TfL spokesman confirmed last night that an investigation had been launched but denied the faults were “heat related”.